THE HAGUE, Jan 17 (AFP) - Former Bosnian Serb officer Vidoje Blagojevic on Monday became the second person to be convicted of genocide charges by the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over the 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims in the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.
"The trial chamber finds Colonel Blagojevic guilty of complicity in genocide by aiding and abetting genocide," judge Carmen Maria Argibay said as she read out a summary of the verdict.
Blagojevic, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison, is only the second person to be convicted on charges of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) based in The Hague.
In April last year Blagojevic superior, Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic, became the first man found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide. On appeal he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his leading role in the massacre of Muslims that followed the fall of the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.
In its verdict Monday the court confirmed that the killings in Srebrenica legally constituted genocide. The massacre is considered the worst single atrocity on European soil since World War II.
In the days after the fall of the UN protected enclave of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb troops captured, detained and executed over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men from the enclave. Muslim women and children were forcibly transferred to Muslim held parts of Bosnia.
"The trial chamber finds that the act through which genocide was committed were killing members of the group and causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. The group is defined as the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica," the summary of the judgement said.
Genocide, the gravest of war crimes, is defined as "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".
In a strange twist the chamber concluded that it could not be established that Blagojevic knew of the executions at the time but mainly assisted the forcible transfer of Muslims.
"The chamber must consider, however, that the practical assistance he rendered had a substantial effect of the commission of the crime of genocide," the court ruled.
The fact that the court ruled that Blagojevic "did not play a major role" in the massacre could account for the relatively light sentence he received.
Last year Momir Nikolic and Dragan Obrenovic, two other Bosnian Serb officers listed on the same indictment, pleaded guilty to charges of crimes against humanity and were sentenced to 27 and 17 years respectively.
Blagojevic's co-accused Dragan Jokic was sentenced to nine years in prison for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Jokic was the chief engineer in the Zvornik brigade of the Bosnian Serb army at the time of the massacre. The court ruled that he assisted the digging of mass graves for the victims.
"The trial chamber is convinced that beyond a reasonable doubt that Dragan Jokic knew that (Zvornik brigade engineering resources and personnel) were sent in order to dig mass graves.
Six men accused over the massacre are still at large including Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
Last year the government of the Bosnian Serb entity in Bosnia for the first time publicly acknowledged the scale of the Srebrenica massacre and apologized to the victims.
01/17/2005 15:48 GMT - AFP